A Battery-Free Sustainable Powertrain Solution for Hydrogen Fuel Cell City Transit Bus Application

Giuseppe Fabri, Antonio Ometto, Marco Villani and Gino D’Ovidio
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Giuseppe Fabri: Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L’Aquila, Via Gronchi, 18, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Antonio Ometto: Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L’Aquila, Via Gronchi, 18, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Marco Villani: Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L’Aquila, Via Gronchi, 18, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Gino D’Ovidio: Department of Civil, Construction-Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of L’Aquila, Via Gronchi, 18, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: The paper presents a sustainable electric powertrain for a transit city bus featuring an electrochemical battery-free power unit consisting of a hydrogen fuel cell stack and a kinetic energy storage system based on high-speed flywheels. A rare-earth free high-efficiency motor technology is adopted to pursue a more sustainable vehicle architecture by limiting the use of critical raw materials. A suitable dynamic energetic model of the full vehicle powertrain has been developed to investigate the feasibility of the traction system and the related energy management control strategy. The model includes losses characterisation, as a function of the load, of the main components of the powertrain by using experimental tests and literature data. The performance of the proposed solution is evaluated by simulating a vehicle mission on an urban path in real traffic conditions. Considerations about the effectiveness of the traction system are discussed.

Keywords: urban transit bus; passenger transport; sustainable mobility; hydrogen; fuel cell; flywheel; energy storage system; battery-free; rare earth free; power flow strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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